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Canadian figure skating championships: Women ready to leap back onto world stage

Despite their youth, newly minted national champion Kaetlyn Osmond and her podium mates all display an ease with the triple-triple tricks that are now mandatory for elite females in international competitions.

Nicole Orford and Thomas Williams, who surprised by winning bronze in the ice dance competition, are almost certain to make their first trip to worlds this March.
(BERNARD WEIL / TORONTO STAR)

The suddenly defining factor of women’s figure skating in Canada: teen-hood and triple-triples.

Newly minted national champion Kaetlyn Osmond, at just 17, was actually oldest among the trio of females who annexed the podium this weekend, and the dynamic Newfoundland native joked about that.

Silver medallist Gabrielle Daleman turned 15 a week ago Sunday.

Bronze medallist Alaine Chartrand, all five-foot-zero of her, is 16.

It’s reasonable to assume that their growth spurts — body changes that commonly wreak havoc on skaters, throwing jumping form out of whack — have already occurred and these are close to their adult-in-process dimensions.

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Each of the adolescents showed at the Canadian figure skating championships a confidence and ease with the most demanding elements in their sport — the triple-triple tricks that are now mandatory for elite females in international competitions.

Osmond landed a clean 3-toe-3-toe in her rumba-flavoured short program, though leaving that feature out of her free skate routine on Saturday. She brought a 13-point lead into the final over reigning titleholder Amelie Lacoste, 24, who slumped out of the medals entirely after Chartrand’s coach lodged a protest over a marking error where she hadn’t been given the proper baseline value for an element.

Chartrand became the first Canadian female to execute a triple Lutz-triple Salchow combination, with a single loop in between — a three-jump element. Young Daleman, who was national junior champion last year, arrived at this competition packing a triple-toe-triple-toe as well, performed cleanly.

The many years of female futility that bracketed the Joannie Rochette era may finally be history.

Canadian girls have been watching the difficult programs tossed off by competitors from Russia and Japan. Those are their role models. “Since we’ve seen what the Russians and everyone can do and what Kaetlyn did last year, I think we’re just trying to meet the standards and do the best we can and try and get up there with everyone,” said Daleman.

These blossoming skaters went head-to-head as juniors. They’re matriculating now. “We all did really well on the junior Grand Prix circuit,” notes Chartrand. “Now we know what it’s like in the world.”

Adds Daleman: “You want to do the best and if you see someone’s doing something better, you want to try to do it even better.”

The worlds team won’t be formally announced until Monday but it’s unlikely Skate Canada officials will make any unilateral changes to spots earned with results from the weekend. Unfortunately, because of Lacoste’s-16th place finish in Nice a year ago, Canada can send only one female to worlds in London, Ont.

Three men will make that trip: Two-time and reigning world champion Patrick Chan, of course, surely to be joined by Kevin Reynolds — five quads over the weekend — and probably bronze winner Andrei Rogozine of Newmarket.

Three ice-dance teams qualify off last year’s victory by Virtue and Moir, and there was some fall-induced ranking adjustment Sunday. Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, surprisingly only six points overall behind the Olympic champions, stayed comfortably ahead of a pursuing field, with Nicole Orford and Thomas Williams rising up into third place as other more experienced couples floundered.

A dramatic showdown in pairs left only two points of daylight between Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, who defended their title, and Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch.

The weekend spectacle concluded on a bizarre note with reports there had been an incident involving skaters at their nearby hotel. A noise complaint to hotel management resulted in a warning to tone down celebrations following Saturday night’s competition. When that didn’t happen, police were summoned, though nobody was charged, according to Skate Canada spokesperson Barb McDonald.

She flatly denied that tiny Moore-Towers was one of the culprits, as had been rumoured. McDonald said she could not confirm the names of the other skaters involved, nor whether the noisy celebrants had been kicked out of the hotel.

There are code of conduct protocols for figure skaters.

“We’re a little disappointed that it got out of hand,” said McDonald. “As we find out more information, we will take appropriate consequences once we have all details, as it affects any of our skaters.”

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